


Redrawing the Lines

by Sandrine Shaw (Sandrine)



Category: Spooks | MI-5
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 06:48:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandrine/pseuds/Sandrine%20Shaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the first time anyone has touched him with intent in... a long time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redrawing the Lines

**Author's Note:**

> Set early in series 7.

In Russia, Lucas had come from regarding the tattoos as a necessity, to considering them – each single one of them – a celebration of survival: _I'm still here, I still bleed and bruise and breathe._ They became part of him, part of his skin and his body and his mind.

It's different in England.

Here, they only serve as a reminder of the years of imprisonment and torture. They're a remnant of Russia, a leftover of a time he wants to put behind himself. Here, he hates them.

It doesn't help that he remembers Harry's wary expression when he first saw them, the evening of his exchange, and took them as just another sign to question Lucas' loyalty. It doesn't help that he sees Elizabeta shy away from him whenever she catches a flash of dark blue ink on his skin. He doesn't harbour any delusions; the tattoos are the least of the problems between him and Elizabeta, but it's another brick in the wall that's rising higher and higher between them.

He looks in the mirror and feels like the body of the man he sees is not his own, just a stranger wearing his face. Sometimes, at night, he gets up (from his bed in the apartment, or – more frequently – from his desk in the office) and goes to the bathroom to look at himself, staring at the contrast of dark and skin for minutes that bleed into hours. He tells himself that he needs to get reacquainted with this body, with this skin, that he needs to accept that this is him, tells himself that that's why he's doing this. But perhaps he's just acquired a taste for pain in Russia, because he feels a fresh stab of it with every gaze into the mirror, like the needle of a tattoo artist.

Harry walked in on him once on one of those occasions (well, twice really, but he doesn't count that first day), and he had the sense to leave the room without saying a word. Lucas appreciates that about Harry: that he knows just when to push and when it's best to leave people alone. 

It's an ability Ben doesn't have developed yet.

He walks into the office restroom at three in the morning, fifty-something hours after his undercover job in the Al Qaeda cell ended with his roommate dead and a bomb going off in the streets. Lucas doesn't turn around, but from the glimpse he catches at the mirror, Ben didn't get much sleep in those last two days.

Ben just stands there, a couple of feel from the door, looking at Lucas. Lucas watches his gaze flickering unconsciously down to the tattoos before their eyes meet in the mirror. When it becomes clear that Ben is not going to follow Harry's example and let Lucas have his privacy, Lucas turns around to look straight at him. 

"Rough day, huh?" he asks, trying to be sympathetic even though all he wants it to be left alone.

Ben shrugs. "When is it ever not?" 

For a moment, Lucas thinks it's another brush-off, just another way for Ben to tell him that he doesn't want to talk about the job, but then he notices the way Ben's eyes are drawn to the ink on his chest, rapid shifts in his gaze that betray him, and he realized that Ben is not so much avoiding as he's distracted.

Lucas raises an eyebrow at him, and Ben seems to take it as permission to step closer and stop the fruitless attempt to conceal his fascination with the tattoos. It feels different from the usual stares Lucas finds himself at the receiving end of – possibly because there's no disgust in Ben's look, just curiosity and... something else, something that makes the hair at the back of Lucas' neck stand up in a way that he can't say is good or bad.

"These are—Wow," Ben says with something akin to awe in his voice, and his hand reaches out.

Before his fingertips as much as brush against skin, Lucas' hand shoots up to stop him, fingers locking around Ben's wrist in an iron grip. He can feel Ben's pulse speeding up under his thumb, the arm trembling in his grip.

"Sorry, man, I just—I didn't mean to—"

As the younger agent fumbles for an apology, Lucas shakes his head and lets Ben's wrist go. "No, it's okay. You just caught me by surprise there. Go ahead." 

Ben gives him a surprised look. "May I?"

"Sure," he says with a shrug. He feels weird about it, but then, he's felt weird about almost everything since he came back home; it's a feeling he's rapidly getting used to, but it intensifies exponentially once Ben reaches out, following the lines and curves on his chest down to his stomach with ever so slightly shaking fingers. It's the first time anyone has ever touched the tattoos deliberately, other than the artist. More than that, it's the first time anyone has touched him with intent in... a long time. He tries not to think about it, or react to it, but he knows he's not doing the best job there.

"They're amazing," Ben says, as a curious finger skims across the letters, drawing Lucas' attention.

He chuckles wryly. "That's one way to look at them." It's certainly not a way _he_ ever looked at them.

Ben blinks, his hand dropping down suddenly, as if he'd only just realized what he was doing. "Sorry." He looks a little panicked.

"It's okay," Lucas assures him, and his smile is more sincere than it was before.

"I better get going," Ben says, and Lucas is almost amused by the hasty retreat. But then Ben stops when he's already halfway out of the door and turns back to him. "Hey, that offer for a debrief over a beer..."

He leaves the sentence hanging, and for a long moment, they silently lock eyes across the restroom. 

"Still stands," Lucas finishes, and holds the gaze.

"I might take you up on it," Ben tells him. Then he's gone, the door falling shut behind him.

Lucas turns and looks himself in the mirror, watching the tattoo ripple on his chest and trying to see what Ben saw.


End file.
